


Keepsake

by MrProphet



Series: Deadly [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Keep
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 17:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10701264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	Keepsake

_The Dinu Pass, Romania_  
2005  
  
At first, it merely looked as though the cellar had been painted red. Even when he put his foot down in a red, sticky wetness, Deadly's mind rebelled against the truth and insisted that it must be spilled wine. "Good God," he muttered, as the truth slowly dawned on him. He turned and strode quickly up the stairs. "Lock the door," he told the two privates who had accompanied him. "Simmons, stay here and don't let anyone in. Jeffries, get Jones and Briggsy, two body bags... and a hose."

"A hose?" Simmons asked.

"Just don't... Stay out here until I get back."

Deadly knew well how soldiers worked; that was the only thing that kept him from running pell-mell to Captain Womack's office. If they saw their lieutenant in a panic, the men would panic and he wouldn't do that to them. He forced himself to walk slowly and steadily along the dark halls, past the row upon row of headless tin crosses which studded the walls.

Womack's aide, Sergeant Philips, told him that the Captain was in conference with Lieutenant Farrow, the station’s intelligence officer, but Deadly pushed past and through the door anyway.

Captain Womack was a tall, serious man; a consummate professional soldier with a firm, measured gaze and a serious moustache. Lisa Farrow was a slim, dark girl - with her sweet, round face he always thought of her as a girl, although she would have slapped him, and hard, if he'd said it - with round gasses and too-clever eyes. She had always reminded Deadly of his cousin, which on a pretty girl was confusing to say the least. The combined effect of these two presences meant that Deadly's news, already wild and outlandish, felt almost ridiculous.

"Deadly?" Womack asked; even he used his second-in-command's nickname. "What's the meaning of this?"

"It's Lassiter and Stigley," Deadly replied. "They're... Sergeant Tabor sent them down to the cellars. Something killed them."

Womack rose to his feet. "Someone kiled them?"

Deadly drew a deep breath. "Some _thing_ ," he repeated. "Captain... there's nothing down there but blood and... bits. Nothing human could have done that," he insisted.

"Stigley?" Farrow asked; her voice quavered softly. "This 'thing' killed Private Stigley?"

"And Lassiter," Deadly replied.

"Show me," Womack insisted.

*

The three officers spent almost an hour in the cellar, examining the grisly remains, before allowing the remaining men to gather up the pieces. For the most part, Womack merely stared, but Deadly often turned to catch Farrow crouching down, her eyes closed and her fingers dipped in the tacky blood. Only Deadly seemed to pay much attention to the bodies, and the terrible wounds which had carved them apart.

"What could do that to a man?" he wondered aloud in the seclusion of the officers' study. The room had been a smoking room at some time in the keep's history, and it served well enough as a retreat for the three officers of the supply station. Womack also had his own study, and had retreated there after their return from the cellar, leaving Deadly and Farrow alone.

Farrow sat in silence, tapping her thumb against her lips in thought.

"Farrow?"

She looked up. "Hmm?"

"What could do that to a man?" he asked again.

She gave a shy smile. "You're asking me?"

Deadly nodded.

"How should I know?"

"Well, you know what they say about you," he said.

"Oh?"

"They say that you're a witch," he told her, although he knew it was redundant; she could not have missed hearing the rumours.

"Pure spite," she assured him.

"I know. But on the other hand, you are a witch." He pointed at her side. "I saw what you took from Stigley's body."

Reluctantly, Farrow reached into her jacket and produced a broken length of polished wood, smeared with dry blood. A silvery cord held the two halves together so that one end dangled and bobbed forlornly. “How did you know?”

“I have a cousin,” he admitted.

Farrow nodded. "You asked me what could do that to a man," she said. "More frightening to consider is what could do that to a wizard, especially a fighter of Stigley's skill. Lassiter was unarmed, but Stigley…"

“Had his wand,” Deadly agreed. “Did he use it?”

“Yes,” Farrow agreed. “The unicorn hairs are still resonating, although it’s too slight to say what spells he cast. When the tension goes…”

"Farrow. What did it?"

She shook her head. "Something old and powerful,” she explained. “Something that lives in the very stones of this keep. Something even we don't have a name for. Something like this happened before," she added. "During the Second World War a German garrison was slaughtered here. That's why the Ministry sent Stigley and me to join your unit."

Deadly raised an eyebrow. "So, you're not a real soldier?"

"Oh, I am," she assured him. "Actually, there used to be a whole separate Warlock Corps, but we're imbedded now. Like journalists."

"So, what do we do?" Deadly asked. "Or rather, what are you going to do? This is wizard business; I suppose there's not much I can offer."

“I’m not sure what  _I_  can offer,” Farrow admitted. “I’m the brains of this operation; Stigley was the muscle. If he couldn’t stop it, there’s nothing I can do.”

“Not with muscle,” Deadly agreed, “but there’s more ways of solving a problem than just applying force. If you’re the brains, you should know that.”

“But I don’t know what I’m dealing with,” Farrow insisted.

Deadly nodded. “Then let’s find out.”

*

There was a library in the keep. It had been empty when they arrive – Deadly had considered using it as an armoury, but it was too isolated – but now it was full of books.

“You brought a few reference materials,” he noted.

“Side-along apparation,” she explained. “We shifted them from the corps’ library when we arrived.”

“Why so many?”

“Peace-keeping duties in Transylvania?” Farrow teased. “Who knew what we might face?”

“So; what are we looking for?” Deadly asked. “Vampires? Werewolves? Zombies?”

“Oh, I wish,” Farrow laughed, with a hysterical note in her voice. “No, this is something rarer; something…”

“Older,” he finished. “You said.”

“Right; so none of the newer works are going to be any good. We need to go back into the older texts; something no-one has bothered to keep up the records on because they all thought it was long gone.” She shook her head again. “Something even the wizarding world thinks of as a legend. If only we knew a little more than just that it rips people to pieces. Only… a lot of things do that, one way or another.”

Deadly nodded. “I’ll see what I can find out,” he promised.

“What?”

“I’ll go down and check out the cellar,” he explained. “I’ll take a radio; keep a channel open. That way you’ll still know what I’ve seen; even if something…”

“Don’t  _let_  anything happen,” Farrow insisted. 

“I’ll be careful,” Deadly promised.

“I mean it. Whatever it is, this thing is going to be feeding on its kills; growing stronger with every life it takes.”

Deadly smiled. “And for a moment I thought you cared.”

“Show me your tags,” she said.

Warily, Deadly fished the dog tags out of his jacket. Farrow picked up her swagger stick – he had always thought that must be an affectation – and touched the tip to the tags. “ _Talis protego_ ,” she murmured, and a spark leaped from wand to dog tags.

“For luck?”

“And protection,” she assured him. “It’s a shield. It won’t last for long if that  _thing_  attacks you, but it might just be enough for you to get out of there.”

“And… will it follow me?”

“Oh. I don’t know. Maybe you should take a squad down with you?”

“For what?” Deadly demanded. “Meat shields?”

Farrow shook her head. “Just so someone…”

“That’s what the radio is for,” he reminded her. “And I’ll be careful,” he said again.

*

Deadly left the library and went down to the room he  _did_  choose for the armoury. He took off his jacket and reached for the body armour. He wasn’t sure what good it would do against the kind of brutal tearing wounds inflicted on his men, but like the talisman it might at least delay the inevitable and it had pockets. He clipped a radio to either side of the vest and connected an earpiece. He picked up a rifle and filled the pouches on the vest with ammunition. Again, it probably wouldn’t do any good, but for a professional soldier going in unarmed would be like a wizard going in without a wand.

There were two soldiers on duty at the armoury door; Deadly sent one of them up to the library with a pair of radios for Farrow, while he went down to the cellars. There were four soldiers on the door down there, all fully armed and armoured.

“Sorry, Lieutenant,” Corporal Andrews said. “You can’t go in there.”

“I beg your pardon, Corporal?”

“Captain Womack’s orders,” Andrews explained. “No-one is to go down until he gets back.”

A cold shiver ran up Deadly’s spine. “Gets back from… Is he down there?”

“Took ten men down with heavy weapons; said no-one goes in or out until…”

“Andrews, open that door!” Deadly insisted. “That’s an order, Corporal.”

“But Captain Womack…”

Andrews was interrupted by a scream from the cellar, followed by a long, drawn out chatter of gunfire. Deadly moved towards the door. Andrews tried to intercept him, but Deadly punched him in the face.

“Sir!” One of the privates protested.

“Stay here!” Deadly ordered. “And if anything comes through that door, except for one of us…”

“Shoot it?” the private asked.

“Run,” Deadly corrected. “Just  _run_.”

*

Farrow switched the two radios on and put them in her pockets, then dismissed the baffled private and went back to her books. Three volumes in particular recommended themselves at once: Eduard di Tobin’s  _Custos Spiritus_ ,  _The Abyssal Missal_  of Tomas Henkel and  _My Travels in the Netherworld_ ; one of Aristotle’s lesser known works. Unfortunately, all three of these were not only ancient in the extreme but also archaic in style and no-one had bothered to translate them in centuries. She had copies of each in her collection, but the  _Custos_  was in Latin, the  _Abyssal_  in Middle German and the Aristotle, for some unknown reason, in Mediaeval Welsh.

One of the radios crackled. “ _I’m moving into the cellar now, Farrow,_ ” Deadly said. “ _I’m going to leave this radio transmitting; if you need to call me, say to let me know how to kill this thing, use the other radio._ ”

Farrow took the silent radio from her pocket. “Understood, Deadly.” She paused for a second. “Do I have to call you that?” she asked.

“ _You can call me Lieutenant, if you’d rather. It just feels odd, us being the same rank._ ”

“I think I might do that anyway,” She told him. “Look, so far I’ve managed to find about a dozen possibilities,” she went on. “I can rule out a couple of them by cross-referencing, but I need more information.”

“ _I’ll do what I can._ ”

*

“I’ll tell you what though,” Deadly said, “if we survive this we could set up shop as a remote control superteam. You could be my man in the van.”

“ _I’m flattered. Really._ ”

“Sorry; I’m just nervous.” He rounded the corner of a wine rack into another empty aisle. “There was a lot of shooting going on down here and it’s gone very quiet. Even the screaming has stopped.”

“ _Screaming?_ ”

“Captain Womack took a heavy squad and went monster hunting,” Deadly explained. “I guess they found…” He broke off and listened. “Something’s coming,” he said. “I think…” He lifted his rifle, but at once lowered it; the footsteps were human.  
Captain Womak led four soldiers around the corner; two more followed, moving backwards to cover their retreat.

“Have you seen it?” Womack demanded. “Did it come this way?”

Deadly shook his head. “No,” he said.

“Damn! We had it on the run!” Womack barked. “”Alright; spread out and…”

“No, Sir!” Deadly insisted. “We need to keep together.”

“I will not…” Womack began, but before he could finish, the lights in the cellar went out, plunging the room into darkness.

“The lights are out.” As he spoke, Deadly fumbled for the torch attached to his rifle. “I can hear… buzzing.”

There was a staccato roar as one of the soldiers let rip with his machine gun. In the flash of the muzzle flare, Deadly saw for a moment a shimmer of wings. A dreadful scream replaced the weapon fire and then cut off in a hideous gurgle.  
Deadly’s torch flashed on and the beam of light picked out a huge, striped body an shimmering, faceted eyes, before the creature was gone again. Three more torch beams flickered on and Womack broke open a flare.

Private Matthews lay dead.

“What the hell?” Deadly demanded.

“ _What is it?_ ” Farrow asked.

“It’s… different. Matthews is dead, but not torn. It looks like he was stabbed; transfixed, even. Right through his heart. It looked like this thing was a sort of giant wasp. I guess Matthews got stung.”

The lights came on again.

“We’re doing better,” Womack asserted. “Last time it took four of us.”

“Last time?” Deadly asked.

“Last time the lights went out.”

“And they were… run through?”

Womack shook his head. “Burned. It was… on fire.”

“Yeah, but it was weird,” Hollister insisted. “There was fire, but it didn’t cast any light,” he explained.

“Like it wants to stay in the dark,” Deadly suggested.

*

Farrow shook her head. “Oh, no,” she muttered. “No, no, no; it can’t be. Not  _that_.”

“ _Can’t be what?_ ” Deadly asked. “ _Have you…? Damn._ ”

“What?”

“ _Lights out,_ ” he said, and then the channel was cluttered with gunfire and screams and pure chaos.

“Lieutenant!” she cried. “Deadly!” She swore under her breath and turned to the Aristotle; her mediaeval Welsh was rusty, and she knew that she could not afford to make the slightest error in her translation.

*

This time, fresh light showed three more dead, this time each in a different way. One had had his throat torn open, the second had also fallen victim to throat trauma, but in this case only two pin pricks marked his skin. The third death was a result of friendly fire.

“Back to back,” Deadly ordered. “Face outward and keep your torches on. We know it comes in the dark; last time it attacked as soon as the flare ran out. Farrow; you got anything for me yet?”

“ _Working on it,_ ” she assured him.

“You told me it wasn’t vampires, but I’ve got a couple of bit throats that say otherwise.”

“ _It wasn’t a vampire._ ”

“Then what?”

“ _I’m working on it._ ” 

“Soon would be nice. There are only four of us left down here.”

“ _If you want to swap and do the Welsh translation…_ ”

“No, I…” The lights went out again. “Keep shining those lights,” Deadly warned.

“Come on then!” Womack snarled. “Come out of the shadows and die!”

At that moment a howling wind began to whip through the cellar.

“Oh God,” Womack whimpered. “It’s… No!”

The wind grew in strength and a wine rack toppled towards them. 

*

Farrow finished writing and checked her translation through.

“Lieutenant…” she began, but then the other channel erupted with a cacophony of crashing and screaming and shattering glass. “Damn,” she muttered.

*

Deadly tried to move, but his leg wouldn’t move. In the dim, reflected light of the dropped torches he could see that his ankle was twisted beneath the fallen wine rack. His skin stung with a dozen tiny cuts and the heady smell of spilled wine filled the air. Somewhere in the dark, something moved with a soft footfall.

“No.”

Deadly heard Womack’s moan. He fumbled in his pocket for a torch and managed to shine the beam on the battered form of his commanding officer. A cloaked form crouched over him, wearing a tall, pointed, black hat and carrying, of all things, a broomstick.

“Farrow,” he groaned. “Farrow, I don’t know if you can hear me, but… It’s a witch, Farrow. I mean,  _the_  witch. The Wicked Witch of the West. What is going on here?”

Womack’s last scream broke off in a choking gurgle and the witch dissolved like smoke and vanished into the shadows.

With a crash of breaking glass, a dozen bottles of wine slid off the rack. Thankfully, this changed the balance sufficiently for Deadly to drag his leg free. His ankle still ached, but he could at least move.

“I don’t think I’m getting out alive,” Deadly noted. “If you can hear me, Farrow, I hope you’ve got enough to take care of this, but if not, don’t make any gestures. Get out; blow the whole place to hell and…”

A soft chuckle drew Deadly’s attention.

“How noble you are,” a familiar voice sneered. “I never would have expected that of you, Duddy.”

Deadly dragged himself up, keeping his weight off his injured leg. A slim figure stalked out of the darkness towards him, the dim light flashing from its glasses.

“Farrow?” Deadly asked.

“Sorry, Duddy, but don’t worry.” The figure moved a little further into the light; the silhouette resolved, becoming clearly male. Deadly could make out little detail, but the dark zigzag of the telltale scar was clear. Harry Potter smiled cruelly. “I promise you I’ll deal with your little girlfriend soon enough.”

“Farrow, keep out of here!” Deadly insisted, but h couldn’t hear any reply.

“It doesn’t matter,” Harry assured him. “Once I finish with you, I’ll be strong enough to leave this place; soon, strong enough escape the keep altogether.”

“If you finish with me,” Deadly taunted.

“That won’t be a problem.  _Fireball_!” Harry flung out his wand and shot a bolt of flame straight at Deadly, who could not move fast enough to get out of the way.

The fireball exploded, flames licking over and around Deadly, but not touching him.

“A shield,” Harry laughed. “She really didn’t have much faith in you, did she? Do you think it’s still there, or did I destroy it already?”

Deadly leaped for a rifle, but Harry sent it spinning away with a flick of his wand.

“ _Lightning!_ ” A blue-white stream of electrical energy smeared across Farrow’s shield, but Deadly twisted and writhed in agony as the last of the lightning leaked through.

At that moment, the lights snapped back on. Deadly began to breathe a sigh of relief, but Harry neither vanished nor retreated.

“Sorry, Duddy,” Harry sneered. “I’m too strong to fear the light anymore.” He flourished his wand. “You were right, by the way,” he said. “You were always right. You were never as good as…”

“ _Expelliarmus!_ ”

Harry’s arm went into a momentary spasm and his wand flipped out of his hand.

Farrow emerged from among the wine racks. “ _Statomorpus totalis terastor!_ ” she intoned, and a soft glow surrounded Harry.

Harry snarled in rage, but seemed unhindered. He held out his hand and Farrow’s wand leaped into his grasp. “ _Strike!_ ” he barked, and Farrow flew back as though pummelled by a giant fist.

“Quickly!” Farrow gasped, clutching at her hand in pain. “It’s stuck in that shape. Shoot it!”

Without stopping to think, Deadly scrabbled for his rifle. Harry seemed torn, unable to decide which of his enemies to attack first, and in that moment Deadly fired.

A single shot struck Harry in the side and he fell, dying. This seemed as good a time as any to pass out, and so Deadly did just that.

*

He came around to see a round, bespectacled face learning over him. Dark hair hung down in a tangle.

“Actually,” Deadly murmured, “you don’t look much like Harry at all. ‘S just the glasses.”

“That’s… nice,” she said. “How do you feel?”

“Sore,” he replied. “We’re lucky Harry didn’t kill us both.”

Farrow shrugged. “Maybe. And it wasn’t really Harry Potter and how do you know Harry Potter anyway?”

Deadly sat up and groaned. “He’s my cousin,” he said.

“So, Deadly…?”

“Better than Dudley.”

“I thought Harry Potter’s cousin was…” Farrow blushed.

“Fat?” He shrugged. “Yeah; hard work can do great things. So, if not Harry, what was it that killed half the command?”

“A Phobomorph,” Farrow replied. “Or to give it its common name, a Terrorform. They were bred from common Boggarts during the great wizard wars. Like a Boggart, they take the form of their victim’s greatest fear, but where a Boggart feeds on fear itself and preys on one victim at a time, a Terrorform eats death and can decimate  _legions_. They were supposed to have been wiped out,” she assured him, “but sometimes one of these things survives, hidden away somewhere. This one must have dwindled and slumbered, denied sustenance, until the slaughter of that German garrison – by… whatever power did it – brought it back to life.

“It woke sixty years ago, but then the keep was abandoned and it still lacked the strength to walk abroad.”

“And then we showed up and went down into the cellars looking for a bottle of plonk,” Deadly sighed.

“Yes.”

“And… your greatest fear is Harry Potter?”

Farrow shook her head.

“Right. Damn.”

“ _Anyway_ ; a Boggart can be driven off using a  _Ridikulus_  charm to force it into an amusing form,” Farrow went on diplomatically. “Terrorforms don’t need fear, however, and they’re not repelled by joy; they just use fear to give them shape. Force it to turn into a cute little puppy in a hat and it’ll still rip your face off. You  _can_  kill it, but it’s a shapeshifter. You shoot at it and it turns into air, blast it with flames and it becomes a stone and so on. Fortunately, I was able to find an incantation in the  _Missal Abyssal_  which freezes it in one form.

“Good thing too; I have a holy terror of Pyroclades. It could have taken the whole keep out in that form.”

“You did good,” he told her.

“You didn’t do too badly yourself,” she assured him. “I think you may be the only Muggle ever to kill a class six thaumoform.”

“Yay me,” he said. “And I’ll let you off the ‘M’ word on the assumption that you’re under a lot of pressure.” He sighed. “I suppose we’d better let Regiment know… something. God knows what.”

“I’ll deal with the paperwork,” Farrow promised. “Witch business.”


End file.
